I have read the Tucows rating system. A huge portion of points are
added|subtracted based on various aspects of installer behavior;
The Tucows rating system is one area. And sorry for the lack of URL. I am
not aware of a public one. The only way I know to have the rating system
document is to create an author account with them, log in, then read it.
I also wanted to mention another item, aside from the scoring system. What
makes a submitted program get refused, categorically. None of the criteria
applies to Treepad, as far as I can see. I suspect Treepad was simply not
submitted by its author. Still, it is criteria I found useful to read - as
a visitor of Tucows listings.
(I'm skipping listing the type of refusals that most all of us would agree
with, such as spam software, credit card for trialware, etc.)
Types of submissions that won't be accepted:
- "Command-line driven--we will accept programs with command-line driven
extraction or installation, but the process must be automated; the user
must not encounter a command line."
; comment. I do enjoy that last line. <g>
- "Scripts"
- "Programs that don't offer stand-alone executables--this has nothing to
do with self-extracting archives; it deals directly with running your
application."
; comment. There was talk about the meaning of the item above on
; alt.comp.shareware.authors. As I read the discussin, it had to do with
; Tucows wanting a setup.exe type file. And refusing a .cab or .zip that
; requires manual installation -- ie the user copying files to their
; desired location.
Top reasons why applications get rejected:
- "Non-stand-alone executable files: your program needs to have a trigger
to run"
; comment. I cannot begin to decipher what they mean above.
- "A language other than English within the installation process, the
application or the developer's Web site"
; comment. gun>foot>shoot
Listed Applications getting removed:
"All non-subscribing authors who have a listing with a User Popularity
score of less than 50 will receive a letter ... "
On this last, I forgot to save the rest of the quote. But here is the
meaning. Non-subscribing authors are those who do not pay Tucows a monthly
fee for the listings. The letter tells them to pay Tucows, in order to stay
listed. As to User Popularity Score, I don't know much about it (but my
first guess is that it's to do with number of downloads). Just, related
is that paying Tucows a premium rate enhances your presence on the
software's presence on the site, with some affect towards increasing that
popularity score.
Btw, also related to money. It costs something like $500 for the developer
to get Tucows to do a review. I saw nothing at all about exceptions made
for freeware. So it leaves me wondering the situation on that. Frankly,
if a freeware author paid $500 for a review, I'd become suspicious about
the nature of their product / motivations.
